The first few months of 2024 bring lots of new writers I’m excited about: Ferdia Lennon brings Irish humour to Syracuse in 4th century BCE in Glorious Exploits, a rollicking debut of friendship, drinking and Euripides; Molly McGhee creates a tender and terrifying near-future vision of debt, wage labour and other horrors of late-stage capitalism in Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind; Heather McCalden combines personal memoir with historical research, using text and image to explore virality and the parallel histories of AIDS and the internet in The Observable Universe; and two prizewinning authors get their first English translations: a Prix Goncourt-winning literary mystery from Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, translated by Lara Vergnaud, and, from Asako Yuzuki and translator Polly Barton, a Japanese thriller that will have you rushing out to buy the most expensive block of butter you can find.
New to me, but far from new, is the work of Helen Garner, which I discovered via the forthcoming reissues of her work from W&N Essentials: The Children’s Bach is a perfect, short novel of family disintegration, which is being reissued in March alongside Monkey Grip and This House of Grief, with more to come later in the year.
And finally, a few new works from old favourites: a second brilliant – but not for the faint-hearted – novel from Lucas Rijneveld and Michele Hutchison, the Booker International-winning writer-translator duo behind The Discomfort of Evening; Keiran Goddard’s follow-up to Hourglass; ten years’ worth of Sheila Heti’s diaries, alphabetised; a new Sigrid Nunez, which is always a good thing.
From the publisher:
'One of the most original and brilliant debuts in years' Irish TimesAn exhilarating and fiercely original story of brotherhood, war and art, set in ancient SicilyTHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE WATERSTONES DEBUT…
Recommended by Gayle
‘One of the most perfect short novels I’ve ever read. Helen Garner vividly depicts the gentle implosion of the Fox family – from shabby domestic bliss to disaster (and back again) – in 150 pages of brilliantly spare prose.’
From the publisher:
The darkly funny debut workplace novel for fans of Black Mirror‘Trippy, incisive, riotously funny’ ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN‘[An] insightfully nightmarish parable ' HALLE BUTLER'A stunner’ NANA KWAME…
From the publisher:
Translated by Lara VergnaudParis, 2018. Diégane Latyr Faye, a young Senegalese writer, discovers a legendary book titled The Maze of Inhumanity. It has an immediate hold over him. No one knows what happened to the author,…
From the publisher:
Are we ever truly lost in the internet age? The Observable Universe is a moving, genre-defying memoir of a woman reckoning with the loss of her parents, the virus that took them, and what it means to search for meaning in a…
From the publisher:
Translated by Polly Barton'Unputdownable, breathtakingly original' ERIN KELLY'Delicious' i-D Magazine'Salivatingly well-written' RENA MATSUIThe cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the…
From the publisher:
LONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2025Patrick, Shiv, Rian, Oli and Conor grew up together. They played together, skipped school together, and dreamt of everything they’d do with their lives.Now they are thirty, and only Rian has…
From the publisher:
Sheila Heti kept a record of her thoughts over a ten-year period, then arranged the sentences from A to Z. In the vein of Joe Brainard’s I Remember and Edouard Levé’s Autoportrait, passionate and…
From the publisher:
Translated by Michele HutchisonThe electrifying new novel from the sensational bestselling winners of the International Booker Prize and 'one of the boldest writers alive today' (Max Porter).'It's been a long time since a book has…
From the publisher:
'A sharp-eyed and tender novel about human connection in a time of crisis' (PAULA HAWKINS) from the bestselling, National Book Award-winning author of The FriendCHOSEN AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE IRISH…
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